Forest Officials In One Indian State Can Now Shoot And Kill Tiger Poachers On Sight

The western Indian state of Maharashtra has issued new directives
allowing forest rangers and guards to shoot poachers on sight in
the state’s four tiger reserves, the Indian daily
DNA reports. The officer will be immune from prosecution.

The order was issued after two tigers and three leopards were
found killed in the last few weeks.
“Killing poachers won’t be considered a crime and no case will be
registered if the forest staff catch them in the act and open
fire,” Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam told reporters, adding
that a legal provision had been made to protect staff from
“excesses by so-called human right activists.”

Forest officers have also been provided with more, better
weapons, 100 vehicles, and additional funds to hire informants to
track poachers, according to the
Hindustan Times, allowing the officers to maintain a 24x7
vigil on the reserves.

The directive has actually been in place since 2002, when the
department first armed its staffers for self-protection,
according to
The Times of India. But guards were still reluctant to fire
their weapons because of being taken to court for human rights
violations after firing their weapons. Another factor is lack of
training: of 11,000 employees, only 1,000 field staffers know how
to use guns.

India has about half of the world's estimated 3,200 tigers (169
of them in Maharashtra, where Mumbai is) in dozens of wildlife
reserves, according to
the AP. But illegal poaching continues, with tiger parts sold
on the black market for traditional Chinese medicine. Fourteen
tigers were killed by poachers in India so far in 2012, eight of
them in Maharashtra, the Wildlife Protection Society of India
says.